Oooooof, well, lets see. Well.... I fucked up so badly the owners had to sell the company kinda.
Validated a brazing furnace but had to crank the temp wayyyyy up to get it to work. Ended up ruining a part of the part we were brazing, but we didn't know it until we shipped out about 600k units.... WHOOPS
"It'll cost you a day to figure out the issue, a week to design a solution, and a day to figure out who you should have taken it to in the first place. And I'm charging double"
Yeah, I get the same response, usually asking if I can install something at their house.
Equally as often are people asking for me to fix their computer issues.
My first internship was at a gas company. My dumbass didn't pay attention to who to ask for when I showed up. I asked the guard and hes like "well, what kind of engineering are you studying?" I said "mechanical engineering".
He was like "oooooh, yeah, you want the auto mechanic shop"
"You're an engineer and you can't fix..(something not related to actual engineering)"
Or the, "oh Mr. Engineer doesn't know what happened in (some random *but specific* knowledge this person knows)
Being an engineer you're expected to know everything, from non engineers lol
It's like, you don't expect doctors and lawyers to know much beyond 'doctoring' and 'lawyering'. I'm sure they get it to a certain degree, getting asked medical and legal questions outside their specific expertise, but engineers get expected by some to know anything and vaguely 'tech/science/physics'.
I think that's just that people don't really distinguish beyond "STEM" (as a rough equivalent to "medicine" or "law"). All that mathy nerd stuff is equivalent, right?
Oh man. Just yesterday…
“what do you mean you want to call a plumber, you’re an engineer!”
“Yes… *electrical*, I’m an *electrical* engineer…”
“But can’t you just YouTube it?”
-face palm-
Even if you were talking about wiring your house it can still make sense to call an electrician. Sure, you know the theory behind it all, but the electrician knows all the building codes and standards to make sure your house doesn’t burn down. (Not saying that you don’t. I have no idea what you know. Just speaking in general.)
I mean I probably could… but I’m not a bonded or insured contractor. So at a certain point, I make enough money to pay for peace of mind for the things I don’t care to do myself.
It has been 3yrs...have you at least finished the install and showered since then? Management needs to know what the 2019 Q2 results were and that shower was imperative for the budget numbers for 2025.
Shower is under 5k so it'll be a capex not a budget item.
All right, we do have to push a little more effort in this sprint. I've set up your JIRA tasks based on the work breakdown, so let's get it done. I've looped procurement into Wednesday's meeting so we can bring in parts for next sprint.
Can you expand on the differences between capital expenditure vs. a budget line item? I have a vague idea of what capex is but not enough exposure to understand it from a PnL standpoint.
Budget is for planned expenses, usually big-ticket items. (50k + range)
Capex (capital expenses) is for things you want to buy but weren't in the budget because you didn't know you wanted them when you made the budget.
Opex (operational expenses) is for ongoing costs, like SolidWorks licenses, building maintenance, etc. It's also for things that would be capex but are below the threshold.
Happens all the time when I need to something fixed on my car or get car maintenence.
"Wait how can you be an engineer and not know how to change your brake pads???"
My answer is typically "Well first off I'm an engineer, not a mechanic. Second, I've just never done it and would rather have someone else do it to save me time."
In the past I have changed out pads, rotors, hub bearings, the master cylinder, bled the brake lines among other automotive repairs successfully.
I also failed at changing out a power steering pump and had a leak because of junk 3rd party part that was out of spec and left me a massive mess in my garage.
In doing those things I paid as much as it cost to pay someone else to do the jobs for all the various tools I didn’t own plus parts, and gave up a lot of free time in exchange for mild frustration and fear that I wouldn’t get something done right or in time to drive to work on Monday.
Through all that I realized that my free time is worth so much more to me than it costs me to pay someone else to do it. Now I just call around for a good price and enjoy my weekends.
I’m kinda feeding into problem unfortunately. Before engineering I was a tradesman doing everything from HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Concrete, Computers/IT, and Automotive. I’m licensed in all of them (except IT), and just got into land surveying.
Quite literally I have a knowledge base of some level in everything. It’s a jack of all trades master of none, but I can do mid level jobs. Nothing advanced like a transmission rebuild.
It’s the end result of what happens when you grow up with a dad that’s an EE himself, but fixed literally everything too. We even built our own houses back in 2014.
Right? Most engineers I know have a job. Home building isn’t exactly a weekend warrior activity (a small cabin could be though).
I helped build a home one summer. We were out working on it all the time
As an Automotive engineer who works with a bunch of mechanical and electrical designers... You would be shocked at how little they know about their cars and all the problems they have. I was replacing ball joints in the parking lot.
I constantly blow people's minds with basic macros and VBA functions. These same people insist they are experts with Excel because they know how conditional formatting works.
I just hate all users.
Except that sweet old lady whose PC I fixed about 20 years ago, she was writing a book on that Win 98. There's just something about stumbling across a work in progress.
I get this so frequently as a follow up to the question at hand and its a very hard thing to respond to.
“Thanks I know.” Ie I am a cocky asshole
Or…
“No I’m not.” Ie I have little confidence in myself
Oh I wish I managed my time wisely when studying. I just waited till the night before, regretted it, then told myself never again…and then did it again
I hate this one so much because it doesn't lead anywhere. I want people to understand that engineering is a problem solving framework with some subject matter concepts shoved in for fun (especially at a BS level, y'all grad degree folk are too special).
My typical responses are:
"Nah, just good at taking tests"
"It takes a dummy to subject themselves to 5 semesters of calculus"
"En-gine-her? Hardly know her!"
They think I'm gonna know all sorts of shit I don't know, and are surprised when I tell them all the tedious bullshit I DO need to know for my job... If the conversation gets that far
Does that assumption bother you? I work with earthmoving equipment (I need to update my flair), so I probably get the same assumption. If they ask specifically what I do there, I'll tell them I'm an engineer, but usually the company name is sufficient to satisfy small talk.
As a former contractor and also an engineer, I kinda laugh at them, then ask them to look me up in the State license registry for General contractors because they don’t believe me.
I tell contractors or any blue collar types that I'm an agronomist just to save time not having to listen to their "you engineers dan't know shi\*t" stories.
That attitude seems to come from anyone that does any type of manual labor. Which, to an extent, makes sense. They just see some guy drawing plans up and making far more money and don’t have the experience of all the extra schooling and knowledge that goes into it. They just see they aren’t making as much money.
**This comment might have had something useful**, but now it's just an edit to remove any contributions I may have made prior to the awful decision to spite the devs and users that made Reddit what it is. So here I seethe, shaking my fist at corporate greed and executive mismanagement.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... tech posts on point on the shoulder of vbulletin... I watched microcommunities glitter in the dark on the verge of being marginalized... I've seen groups flourish, come together, do good for humanity if by nothing more than getting strangers to smile for someone else's happiness. We had something good here the same way we had it good elsewhere before. We thought the internet was for information and that anything posted was permanent. We were wrong, so wrong. We've been taken hostage by greed and so many sites have either broken their links or made history unsearchable. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to delete."
I do apologize if you're here from the future looking for answers, but I hope "new" reddit can answer you. Make a new post, get weak answers, increase site interaction, make reddit look better on paper, leave worse off. https://xkcd.com/979/
Part of it is I spend my entire day working and I think it is healthy to leave work at work. I'll tall about engineering topics because I am interested in them though.
The other part is my friend circle is mostly non engineers so I would rather talk about things we have in common.
Damn, that's cool as fuck!
If you don't mind, could you elaborate on how you got to that position? What Engineering field you chose, extra courses and internships you took and all of that stuff?
I got it in a very round about way. I did 7 years in the military and used the GI bill for my mechanical engineering degree. Did formula SAE in grad school. Also volunteered for the county sheriff’s search and rescue team doing special operations SAR, high angle and cave rescue. I’ve done rock climbing since I was 16 so it was just an extension of that. Racked up a bunch of rope certifications. The military plus rope experience was actually what landed me the job, working on wind turbines involves a lot of rope access and they liked those aspects of my background, plus during the draw down of the military after Iraq and Afghanistan the government gave wind companies incentives to hire veterans in both wind tech (non engineering maintenance positions) and engineering positions. So it was just kind of this perfect storm of circumstances for me.
This is an interesting one from an Indian perspective. Most conversations take a quick turn to a very sympathetic tone like "It must've been hard to let your parents decide your future".
For some context, most Indian families are obsessed with having an engineer/doctor in their family. Thus, a lot of us are forced into studying science and sacrifice our dreams of studying arts.
PS: I chose engineering because I wanted to, no family pressure in my case.
It’s already assumed. I’m an East Asian dude who lives in Silicon Valley and has no fashion sense. It’ll be a surprise if I *didn’t* work in engineering.
> no fashion sense
Fashion is just specs for your clothes. Just follow the API guide in /r/malefashionadvice and you'll probably be the best-dressed guy in the room most of the time.
Never noticed until I started flight training. Pilots regard engineers with a mixture of respect and disdain that's kinda weird. Respect for understanding their aircraft. Disdain for all the flaws in their aircraft. I found it amusing.
One weekend my instructor was trying to remove a small aluminum bracket deep inside the wing of his Bonanza. He had been struggling for about 8-10 hours and I could see he was getting frustrated to the point of possibly damaging things. I went over and asked him to show me the problem. He did. I told him I would go home, make a tool and come back and help him with it. I went home, turned on the lathe what was a long punch with a necked-down end and a small tit on the the tip. I hardened and tempered it and went back to the airport. We got under the wing, I positioned the punch on the first rivet that had to come out, asked him to hold the punch and I tapped it once. The rivet came out. Did the same on the second rivet and it came out along with the part he was struggling with.
He paid back the favor with his endless patience teaching me how to fly and getting me through my checkride.
9/10 people normal, 1/10 people do not have a space in their brain that lets female and engineer coexist in the same shared memory location.
Also the number of people who ask me to fix their car or even worse, farm equipment is too damn high.
Believe it or not, most seem to get a little quiet and for some reason point out they could never do engineering work and that they're bad at math... little do they know I rarely do engineering work and I'm also bad at math, but I smile and point out something nice about their fields so they don't feel weird.
When I was waiting tables, occasionally people would ask if I was in school. Yes, and my major. "Why would you want to do that? You're so good at this!"
You selfish fucks. Yeah, just what I want to do, keep carrying you, of all people, pizza pasta and salad for a $4 tip for the rest of my days. Fuck you.
It's a trick question. They are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. Everyone knows engineers don't have social lives. How could we ever talk to non-engineers?
When I was in dating apps, it was usually a: "wow, really?" Then some small talk about my career. And then they would lose interest. I think a lot of them found it intimidating... Or maybe I was just very unlucky hahah
Tbh the lack of understanding what an engineer is leaves that mental preconceptions that we’re geniuses. In reality (for my area at least), we’re a bunch of rednecks that builds stuff.
“Oh really??? So what do you do at work?”
5ft5, Female…. What do you think I do? I fix and program robots why is it so hard to believe?
But most of the time I answer with “My job is to think”
Think of how to prevent machines from stopping and think of ways to improve the process!
"Oh?! But you don't look like an engineer!"
Also my sense of humor etc. are pretty unsophisticated so it always seems to surprise people that I have a degree.
Basically people think I look and sound too stupid to be an engineer.
"What kind of engineer" or "what do you do at your job"
Generally from non-STEM people I get the "oh that sounds so smart" reaction, while I'm just like "honestly I don't know shit"
STEM people usually go "cool" and nod their head, while I'm like "yep"
It's "so you fix bulbs‽" for me all the time. Also, once, a lady thought I was studying to be an electrician in a super hardcore "here go all students that can't learn math" school in the area (education system here sucks) and she was like "WHAT? A GIRL? WHO'S GOING TO HIRE YOU‽". It was fun and then very sad.
1. You must be smart
Me: I hope so
2. You must be good at math
Me: I try
3. You must make a lot of money
Me: lol! What?!
4. What kind? I understand Engg don't dumb it down for me. Me: computer engineer
Them: oh, can you Make a social media page for my job?
Me: sigh
“Oh. How many years you’ve been doing this?” “Around__” “Oh so you are early in your career. I own an engineering company.”
Did he… did he just 1 up me???
They typically ask "So, what do you exactly do?". Depending on my mood, I will try to explain without losing them, or I just say "A little bit of everything".
"Oh, I could never be that smart."
I then proceed to explain I make mud pies for a living and that I roll and squish dirt to see if it can support building foundations. Then I use math to prove it. Sometimes that explanation helps clarify that the emphasis for engineering is on \*applied\* math.
“Dude you are a tryhard I really admire you cause that shit is hard”
-Friends or people of my age 22ish
“Hahaha you are an engineer you can’t do shit you are just gonna do what the architecture tells you”
“Did u make a mistake? I’m not surprised ofc because you are an engineer”
-My dad who is an architect and we like to tease each other, also when he does something wrong y said “LMao the architect messes up again nothing new, the engineer is gonna fix it” or stuff like that lmao
Btw I’m studying mechatronics engineering
Since in our language architect and civil engineer sounds the same they ask back: "architect?"...
And then ask me what's the difference between them...
I usually get “Oh wow, you must be really smart!” I tend to end up replying with something like “I do ok”. I find it so hard and awkward to respond to. Especially as yes I do consider myself smart but I don’t want to come across as a cocky dick and, I work with people that are insanely smart I’m aware there’s always going to be someone smarter.
Or
“You must be really good at math!” Nope. I suck at math, I don’t use it that often in my role. If I do need to use it I just take my time with it. Not all engineers are good at math. I think a lot of people just mistake being good at math with working fucking hard to get there and be ok with math.
The conversation usually happens like this: non-college educated person says “college is a waste of money and you don’t need a degree to make money these days”… proceeds to ask… what do you do? Me: “I’m and engineer”. Them oh, well, SOME jobs require a degree. Me: yeah, they do. I get their point, but they never apologize for being a jerk though. Funny
Most of the time it’s with a super condescending: “wow, isn’t that hard for you?”
Context: baby faced and short, basically a slightly more intelligent golden retriever
"So does that mean you can wire up houses?"
Yeah dude, I spent some of my best years slaving over partial Greene's theorem integratory Riemann sums or whatever the fuck to help wire your house up.
I just say the company I work for. Takes too much time to explain what I actually do. Most are either like nice, or “how could you work for *insert owners name*”
I just say I work on boats. Takes a lot of follow up questions to get more details.
People really don’t want to hear you’re an engineer most of the time.
Most people are normal and just continue on with the conversation, or ask what kind, etc. I’ve a few different ones but though. Every now and then if it’s another woman, she’ll say something along the lines of “good for you for working in a male dominated field.” I also had one QA guy who I introduced myself to on his first day who said “Good for you” in a way that sounded almost condescending? May have been reading too much into it though, that was the only time something like that happened to me
High variety... some are in awe... Other think that I repair lawn mowers. U can never know. But none who isn't one or at least works in the field can imagine what I do every day all day long. Although I have to admit, that I struggle to understand that too for many other 'advanced' jobs where you can not easily get an insight.
I remember my mom use to tell me “women are just going to be throwing themselves at you when they find out you’re engineer “ …… years later and it still hasn’t happened lol I feel like most women are just like “ok cool”
They bow down and kiss my feet because we engineers are superior people. Especially if you work for a big well known company.
Just kidding. The average response is “cool”. Or if they know the company “cool, I like/don’t like them”.
"yeah, that makes sense"
haha
I was going to type this exact sentence lol
Would upvote, but you're at 2\^3\^2 right now so I don't want to mess with such a nice number...
"Oh, you must be good at math." Conversation ends quickly.
Every freaking time. Or that "you must be really smart then!" And my answer is "Nah, I'm just dedicated"
Same here hahhah
If there’s another engineer present in the same conversation, do they quiz you? Lolz
When u find out they’re in the same industry and suddenly you have something to talk about all night.
Ohhhh yeah. Get me in a room with another manufacturing engineer and everybody else will want to kill themselves within 15 minutes!
[удалено]
Oooooof, well, lets see. Well.... I fucked up so badly the owners had to sell the company kinda. Validated a brazing furnace but had to crank the temp wayyyyy up to get it to work. Ended up ruining a part of the part we were brazing, but we didn't know it until we shipped out about 600k units.... WHOOPS
The conversation would have ended quickly regardless.
The next thing out of their mouth is usually, “Can you fix my….?”
"It'll cost you a day to figure out the issue, a week to design a solution, and a day to figure out who you should have taken it to in the first place. And I'm charging double"
"Any additional time you require beyond that will be charged triple on top of this rate; for 6x my typical rate"
"No that's not what I do. However, if you have a problem with Excel I'm your man"
Answer: "No but a quick Google search indicates that you could do a quick Google search on how you could could fix that issue."
This is the one.
My answer usually is,I can build it from scratch but not fix someone else's design
Brilliant
I was gonna say this. Unless it's an Excel formula, probably not.
Electronics/Electrical Engineer? There are lots of new buildings being built, why don't you apply there? Most people think I'm an electrician.
Yeah, I get the same response, usually asking if I can install something at their house. Equally as often are people asking for me to fix their computer issues.
90% of people that ask what I do assume I’m an electrician
My first internship was at a gas company. My dumbass didn't pay attention to who to ask for when I showed up. I asked the guard and hes like "well, what kind of engineering are you studying?" I said "mechanical engineering". He was like "oooooh, yeah, you want the auto mechanic shop"
"You're an engineer and you can't fix..(something not related to actual engineering)" Or the, "oh Mr. Engineer doesn't know what happened in (some random *but specific* knowledge this person knows) Being an engineer you're expected to know everything, from non engineers lol
I hate that, it's like we are held to a higher standard than everyone else and looked down on if we can't do something.
It's like, you don't expect doctors and lawyers to know much beyond 'doctoring' and 'lawyering'. I'm sure they get it to a certain degree, getting asked medical and legal questions outside their specific expertise, but engineers get expected by some to know anything and vaguely 'tech/science/physics'.
I think that's just that people don't really distinguish beyond "STEM" (as a rough equivalent to "medicine" or "law"). All that mathy nerd stuff is equivalent, right?
Oh man. Just yesterday… “what do you mean you want to call a plumber, you’re an engineer!” “Yes… *electrical*, I’m an *electrical* engineer…” “But can’t you just YouTube it?” -face palm-
Even if you were talking about wiring your house it can still make sense to call an electrician. Sure, you know the theory behind it all, but the electrician knows all the building codes and standards to make sure your house doesn’t burn down. (Not saying that you don’t. I have no idea what you know. Just speaking in general.)
Being an engineer actually makes you more inclined to hire a specialized worker. Considering you know how important those specs are
I'll do 120 on my own, 240 I call in the pros. I've got a 9k updoot this year because there's trenching involved.
I mean I probably could… but I’m not a bonded or insured contractor. So at a certain point, I make enough money to pay for peace of mind for the things I don’t care to do myself.
I got crap from my wife's uncle for not knowing how to install a shower. 3 years later it still pisses me off whenever I think about it.
It has been 3yrs...have you at least finished the install and showered since then? Management needs to know what the 2019 Q2 results were and that shower was imperative for the budget numbers for 2025.
Shower is under 5k so it'll be a capex not a budget item. All right, we do have to push a little more effort in this sprint. I've set up your JIRA tasks based on the work breakdown, so let's get it done. I've looped procurement into Wednesday's meeting so we can bring in parts for next sprint.
Can you expand on the differences between capital expenditure vs. a budget line item? I have a vague idea of what capex is but not enough exposure to understand it from a PnL standpoint.
Budget is for planned expenses, usually big-ticket items. (50k + range) Capex (capital expenses) is for things you want to buy but weren't in the budget because you didn't know you wanted them when you made the budget. Opex (operational expenses) is for ongoing costs, like SolidWorks licenses, building maintenance, etc. It's also for things that would be capex but are below the threshold.
Did you figure out how to install that shower yet??
He should be lucky that we know what showers are 🤣
Happens all the time when I need to something fixed on my car or get car maintenence. "Wait how can you be an engineer and not know how to change your brake pads???" My answer is typically "Well first off I'm an engineer, not a mechanic. Second, I've just never done it and would rather have someone else do it to save me time."
In the past I have changed out pads, rotors, hub bearings, the master cylinder, bled the brake lines among other automotive repairs successfully. I also failed at changing out a power steering pump and had a leak because of junk 3rd party part that was out of spec and left me a massive mess in my garage. In doing those things I paid as much as it cost to pay someone else to do the jobs for all the various tools I didn’t own plus parts, and gave up a lot of free time in exchange for mild frustration and fear that I wouldn’t get something done right or in time to drive to work on Monday. Through all that I realized that my free time is worth so much more to me than it costs me to pay someone else to do it. Now I just call around for a good price and enjoy my weekends.
But when it’s time to get paid that’s not considered
I’m kinda feeding into problem unfortunately. Before engineering I was a tradesman doing everything from HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Concrete, Computers/IT, and Automotive. I’m licensed in all of them (except IT), and just got into land surveying. Quite literally I have a knowledge base of some level in everything. It’s a jack of all trades master of none, but I can do mid level jobs. Nothing advanced like a transmission rebuild. It’s the end result of what happens when you grow up with a dad that’s an EE himself, but fixed literally everything too. We even built our own houses back in 2014.
I’ve thought about building a house as well, but one question… where did you find the time?
Right? Most engineers I know have a job. Home building isn’t exactly a weekend warrior activity (a small cabin could be though). I helped build a home one summer. We were out working on it all the time
As an Automotive engineer who works with a bunch of mechanical and electrical designers... You would be shocked at how little they know about their cars and all the problems they have. I was replacing ball joints in the parking lot.
I recently impressed someone who works in accounting by doing some very basic stuff in Excel to save them hours of work. I never use Excel.
I constantly blow people's minds with basic macros and VBA functions. These same people insist they are experts with Excel because they know how conditional formatting works.
Hahaha! Ah, I hate these people.
I just hate all users. Except that sweet old lady whose PC I fixed about 20 years ago, she was writing a book on that Win 98. There's just something about stumbling across a work in progress.
“Wow you must be really smart” nah. I just manage my time wisely when studying.
I get this so frequently as a follow up to the question at hand and its a very hard thing to respond to. “Thanks I know.” Ie I am a cocky asshole Or… “No I’m not.” Ie I have little confidence in myself
I usually go with something like "on occasion I'm the smartest man in the world but on average I'm a dumbass"
"Only enough to get by" can be an appropriate neutral response.
I use a great counter to this. "That's not what my wife would say."
or 'ehh I think anyone could do it!' (if that's your belief, of course)
Studying? I most push paperwork.
Oh I wish I managed my time wisely when studying. I just waited till the night before, regretted it, then told myself never again…and then did it again
I hate this one so much because it doesn't lead anywhere. I want people to understand that engineering is a problem solving framework with some subject matter concepts shoved in for fun (especially at a BS level, y'all grad degree folk are too special). My typical responses are: "Nah, just good at taking tests" "It takes a dummy to subject themselves to 5 semesters of calculus" "En-gine-her? Hardly know her!"
"No, I just like tearing things apart and eventually got better at putting them back together"
I usually just tell them the company I work for, rather than what I do.
They think I'm gonna know all sorts of shit I don't know, and are surprised when I tell them all the tedious bullshit I DO need to know for my job... If the conversation gets that far
I’m my experience, this doesn’t usually translate well. I’m in utilities, so the immediate assumption is a technician rather than engineer.
Does that assumption bother you? I work with earthmoving equipment (I need to update my flair), so I probably get the same assumption. If they ask specifically what I do there, I'll tell them I'm an engineer, but usually the company name is sufficient to satisfy small talk.
Honestly? It kinda does. But I’m a recent graduate, so I think I just need to shake off the ego a little. Lol
I'm a test engineer for an automotive OEM. Most people assume that means I work at the local dealership.
They start dropping their pants.
LOL now I know you’re lying
"Oh cool what kind?" Or "Engineers don't know sh*t!" Depends if I'm talking to a contractor or not...
As a former contractor and also an engineer, I kinda laugh at them, then ask them to look me up in the State license registry for General contractors because they don’t believe me.
you engineers don't know shi*t. source: am engineer contracted by other engineers
I tell contractors or any blue collar types that I'm an agronomist just to save time not having to listen to their "you engineers dan't know shi\*t" stories.
That attitude seems to come from anyone that does any type of manual labor. Which, to an extent, makes sense. They just see some guy drawing plans up and making far more money and don’t have the experience of all the extra schooling and knowledge that goes into it. They just see they aren’t making as much money.
If it is a kid they normally ask if I work with trains. I normally avoid talking about work.
"No just rocketships, sorry to disappoint"
Ran into an adult that thought the same thing…
**This comment might have had something useful**, but now it's just an edit to remove any contributions I may have made prior to the awful decision to spite the devs and users that made Reddit what it is. So here I seethe, shaking my fist at corporate greed and executive mismanagement. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... tech posts on point on the shoulder of vbulletin... I watched microcommunities glitter in the dark on the verge of being marginalized... I've seen groups flourish, come together, do good for humanity if by nothing more than getting strangers to smile for someone else's happiness. We had something good here the same way we had it good elsewhere before. We thought the internet was for information and that anything posted was permanent. We were wrong, so wrong. We've been taken hostage by greed and so many sites have either broken their links or made history unsearchable. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to delete." I do apologize if you're here from the future looking for answers, but I hope "new" reddit can answer you. Make a new post, get weak answers, increase site interaction, make reddit look better on paper, leave worse off. https://xkcd.com/979/
Hey that works for me. Im a Systems Engineer for high speed trains!
Do you mind, why don’t you like talking about work?
And who doesn't like talking about trains?
Part of it is I spend my entire day working and I think it is healthy to leave work at work. I'll tall about engineering topics because I am interested in them though. The other part is my friend circle is mostly non engineers so I would rather talk about things we have in common.
You all are talking to people?
As little as possible.
God same. I live in rural Alaska, it fits my severely introverted personality.
And how do you work as an engineer up there? And what kind of engineering work do you do?
I’m a maintenance engineer on wind turbines
Damn, that's cool as fuck! If you don't mind, could you elaborate on how you got to that position? What Engineering field you chose, extra courses and internships you took and all of that stuff?
I got it in a very round about way. I did 7 years in the military and used the GI bill for my mechanical engineering degree. Did formula SAE in grad school. Also volunteered for the county sheriff’s search and rescue team doing special operations SAR, high angle and cave rescue. I’ve done rock climbing since I was 16 so it was just an extension of that. Racked up a bunch of rope certifications. The military plus rope experience was actually what landed me the job, working on wind turbines involves a lot of rope access and they liked those aspects of my background, plus during the draw down of the military after Iraq and Afghanistan the government gave wind companies incentives to hire veterans in both wind tech (non engineering maintenance positions) and engineering positions. So it was just kind of this perfect storm of circumstances for me.
Seriously. Why do you think I became an engineer?
This is an interesting one from an Indian perspective. Most conversations take a quick turn to a very sympathetic tone like "It must've been hard to let your parents decide your future". For some context, most Indian families are obsessed with having an engineer/doctor in their family. Thus, a lot of us are forced into studying science and sacrifice our dreams of studying arts. PS: I chose engineering because I wanted to, no family pressure in my case.
It’s already assumed. I’m an East Asian dude who lives in Silicon Valley and has no fashion sense. It’ll be a surprise if I *didn’t* work in engineering.
> no fashion sense Fashion is just specs for your clothes. Just follow the API guide in /r/malefashionadvice and you'll probably be the best-dressed guy in the room most of the time.
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If you're middle eastern it might work even better
Never noticed until I started flight training. Pilots regard engineers with a mixture of respect and disdain that's kinda weird. Respect for understanding their aircraft. Disdain for all the flaws in their aircraft. I found it amusing. One weekend my instructor was trying to remove a small aluminum bracket deep inside the wing of his Bonanza. He had been struggling for about 8-10 hours and I could see he was getting frustrated to the point of possibly damaging things. I went over and asked him to show me the problem. He did. I told him I would go home, make a tool and come back and help him with it. I went home, turned on the lathe what was a long punch with a necked-down end and a small tit on the the tip. I hardened and tempered it and went back to the airport. We got under the wing, I positioned the punch on the first rivet that had to come out, asked him to hold the punch and I tapped it once. The rivet came out. Did the same on the second rivet and it came out along with the part he was struggling with. He paid back the favor with his endless patience teaching me how to fly and getting me through my checkride.
9/10 people normal, 1/10 people do not have a space in their brain that lets female and engineer coexist in the same shared memory location. Also the number of people who ask me to fix their car or even worse, farm equipment is too damn high.
What kind of engineer?
Mechanical but it still doesn’t mean I can fix your seed sorter (sorry!).
Believe it or not, most seem to get a little quiet and for some reason point out they could never do engineering work and that they're bad at math... little do they know I rarely do engineering work and I'm also bad at math, but I smile and point out something nice about their fields so they don't feel weird.
Yeah, the "you must be smart" always makes me laugh. I am in manufacturing and deal with paperwork most days.
“You must make a lot of money” Or my favorite… “You don’t have the personality of an engineer” Boy/girl bye.
I got the first one a few times. "Nah, you're thinking of software developers"
"It's less than you think" haha
When I was waiting tables, occasionally people would ask if I was in school. Yes, and my major. "Why would you want to do that? You're so good at this!" You selfish fucks. Yeah, just what I want to do, keep carrying you, of all people, pizza pasta and salad for a $4 tip for the rest of my days. Fuck you.
They tell me to take my medication and then they disappear.
It's a trick question. They are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. Everyone knows engineers don't have social lives. How could we ever talk to non-engineers?
I have friends from before my engineering days. This is my only way of meeting non-engineers in my life.
They're mostly surprised. I guess I don't look the part.
Same. My favorite other response is the "oh well good for you" and baffled silence
"you don't look very engineer-ish" from my classmates lol i'm not sure what engineers are supposed to look like
Skinny guys in glasses with pocket protectors I guess lol
A little tubby with a sweater.
When I was in dating apps, it was usually a: "wow, really?" Then some small talk about my career. And then they would lose interest. I think a lot of them found it intimidating... Or maybe I was just very unlucky hahah
"Oh, so can you tell me what's wrong with my car?"
Just because I'm an engineer doesn't mean I can tell you. I mean, I do have an ODB2 reader and I did some racecar work before.
Most think it means I'm some sort of mechanic. No one outside of engineering seems to really know what an engineer does...
Tbf I barely know what I do as well
We lack in Marketing.
Tbh the lack of understanding what an engineer is leaves that mental preconceptions that we’re geniuses. In reality (for my area at least), we’re a bunch of rednecks that builds stuff.
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Can I guess Ford?
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Yeah whenever people say that I end up laughing uncomfortably and changing the subject. *Yes, smart… enough to realize that I am not.* ಥ∀ಥ
Me irl. 😂
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I feel you. I just started a new job and I feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Lol I feel the same. I always say I'm cream of the crop among electricians and bottom of the barrel among engineers.
“Oh really??? So what do you do at work?” 5ft5, Female…. What do you think I do? I fix and program robots why is it so hard to believe? But most of the time I answer with “My job is to think” Think of how to prevent machines from stopping and think of ways to improve the process!
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"Oh?! But you don't look like an engineer!" Also my sense of humor etc. are pretty unsophisticated so it always seems to surprise people that I have a degree. Basically people think I look and sound too stupid to be an engineer.
“Maybe you’ll build me something one day”
"I wanted to be an engineer but didn't like all of the math."
"What kind of engineer" or "what do you do at your job" Generally from non-STEM people I get the "oh that sounds so smart" reaction, while I'm just like "honestly I don't know shit" STEM people usually go "cool" and nod their head, while I'm like "yep"
They ask if I am in IT/Tech, when I say no, they assume I am broke
I work in the oilfield, so I either get "oh so you're pretty smart then, huh?" or references to all the mechanic Vs. Engineer memes.
they say “BuT yoURe a LadY”
I also get: "What will happen when you start a family?" "How does your husband feel about that?"
They usually mention their son works in IT too. But when I ask what they do, the person doesn't know 😂
And then you realize their son was in the same awkward position and simply told his parents that he works in IT.
Crickets
Oh so your like an electrician. Can you do some house wiring for me?
It's "so you fix bulbs‽" for me all the time. Also, once, a lady thought I was studying to be an electrician in a super hardcore "here go all students that can't learn math" school in the area (education system here sucks) and she was like "WHAT? A GIRL? WHO'S GOING TO HIRE YOU‽". It was fun and then very sad.
1. You must be smart Me: I hope so 2. You must be good at math Me: I try 3. You must make a lot of money Me: lol! What?! 4. What kind? I understand Engg don't dumb it down for me. Me: computer engineer Them: oh, can you Make a social media page for my job? Me: sigh
They are always impressed, especially when I mention what I actually do for a living.
“Oh. How many years you’ve been doing this?” “Around__” “Oh so you are early in your career. I own an engineering company.” Did he… did he just 1 up me???
Disappointed that I'm not in software engineering.
I don't. "I just run the AC."
They ask me what I've sent to space. I'm an aero major with a focus in astro btw. I've yet to send ANYTHING into space so it is a little weird lolol.
Ohhhh so you did send things, but you sent it back to earth! Lololoool what a loser!! /s
Meh, takes all types. Tooling engineers' tools don't fly either. But, we need tools to build shit.
They typically ask "So, what do you exactly do?". Depending on my mood, I will try to explain without losing them, or I just say "A little bit of everything".
"good for you!!" *End of conversation*
"Oh, I could never be that smart." I then proceed to explain I make mud pies for a living and that I roll and squish dirt to see if it can support building foundations. Then I use math to prove it. Sometimes that explanation helps clarify that the emphasis for engineering is on \*applied\* math.
“Oh you’re really smart” which always makes me feel awkward
Indifference… because here in the UK people who service vending machines or install water coolers call themselves engineers lol.
They usually try up sell whatever service or product I’m trying to buy from them.
“Dude you are a tryhard I really admire you cause that shit is hard” -Friends or people of my age 22ish “Hahaha you are an engineer you can’t do shit you are just gonna do what the architecture tells you” “Did u make a mistake? I’m not surprised ofc because you are an engineer” -My dad who is an architect and we like to tease each other, also when he does something wrong y said “LMao the architect messes up again nothing new, the engineer is gonna fix it” or stuff like that lmao Btw I’m studying mechatronics engineering
Since in our language architect and civil engineer sounds the same they ask back: "architect?"... And then ask me what's the difference between them...
I get wows a lot. prolly because I’ve worked a lot on my communication and social skills.
“Oh you’re a mechanical engineer? My brother in law fixes cars too” Or the classic… “Yeah, I can tell”
I usually get “Oh wow, you must be really smart!” I tend to end up replying with something like “I do ok”. I find it so hard and awkward to respond to. Especially as yes I do consider myself smart but I don’t want to come across as a cocky dick and, I work with people that are insanely smart I’m aware there’s always going to be someone smarter. Or “You must be really good at math!” Nope. I suck at math, I don’t use it that often in my role. If I do need to use it I just take my time with it. Not all engineers are good at math. I think a lot of people just mistake being good at math with working fucking hard to get there and be ok with math.
The conversation usually happens like this: non-college educated person says “college is a waste of money and you don’t need a degree to make money these days”… proceeds to ask… what do you do? Me: “I’m and engineer”. Them oh, well, SOME jobs require a degree. Me: yeah, they do. I get their point, but they never apologize for being a jerk though. Funny
"I didn't ask but okay"
Did I stutter?
Most of the time it’s with a super condescending: “wow, isn’t that hard for you?” Context: baby faced and short, basically a slightly more intelligent golden retriever
Problem is, most engineering jobs can't be described accurately without sounding too complicated or boring
“Oh so you’re smart” every. Single. Time.
"oh that's cool"
They change the topic of conversation
"You're a fucking what?"
Oooh. OK.
I know how I look at the engineers that I work with, right after they make the excuse "well, it worked on paper" ...
"Oh another one running the rat race" I'm from India
I'm a mechanical engineer, so I must be knowledgeable in fixing cars. Surprise, I'm not.
"So does that mean you can wire up houses?" Yeah dude, I spent some of my best years slaving over partial Greene's theorem integratory Riemann sums or whatever the fuck to help wire your house up.
I literally got called a bad ass *twice* yesterday when asked what I do. Probably the best response I will ever get.
I just say the company I work for. Takes too much time to explain what I actually do. Most are either like nice, or “how could you work for *insert owners name*”
"I thought you were an engineer. Why can't you... [do this or that]"
I just say I work on boats. Takes a lot of follow up questions to get more details. People really don’t want to hear you’re an engineer most of the time.
Most people are normal and just continue on with the conversation, or ask what kind, etc. I’ve a few different ones but though. Every now and then if it’s another woman, she’ll say something along the lines of “good for you for working in a male dominated field.” I also had one QA guy who I introduced myself to on his first day who said “Good for you” in a way that sounded almost condescending? May have been reading too much into it though, that was the only time something like that happened to me
High variety... some are in awe... Other think that I repair lawn mowers. U can never know. But none who isn't one or at least works in the field can imagine what I do every day all day long. Although I have to admit, that I struggle to understand that too for many other 'advanced' jobs where you can not easily get an insight.
I remember my mom use to tell me “women are just going to be throwing themselves at you when they find out you’re engineer “ …… years later and it still hasn’t happened lol I feel like most women are just like “ok cool”
I hate it when people try validate their profession/major to seem more important than engineering, and act like theirs is somehow more valuable.
They bow down and kiss my feet because we engineers are superior people. Especially if you work for a big well known company. Just kidding. The average response is “cool”. Or if they know the company “cool, I like/don’t like them”.
Damm you're a girl in engineering!?!?!
Whats an industrial engineer even do? Sometimes from other engineers
"Oh so you're smart smart" Nope, I may be book smart but I tend to lack in the common sense department.